The Psalm
Psalm 73 is a very encouraging and positive psalm. That’s not a mistaken identification, but I also agree that on first glance, the overwhelming number of words and verses on dealing with wickedness appear to define the character of this Psalm.
The more descriptions of the people who go against God, however, the more positive about who God is, and who we are who trust him. Relatively few words are found here about how “good” being with God is, and it seems that’s beside the point.
Of the many aspects portrayed in this psalm, one deserves some attention: complacency. In what ways? We might feel too “ok” being with God. That’s a statement we might not have said, not something that slips out of our tongue easily, but the meaning might be there. We think and feel there’s nothing too much wrong with our relationship with God. God takes care of what we are up go, we respond to his advice and prompting, we learn from our mistakes and become more like him. However, we can never be anywhere like God. Yes, Jesus has sanctified us, and we are saved by his grace. And it is true that while we cannot pay for our sins, it is covered and wiped by the blood of Jesus, and we should not keep dwelling on the past and almost believing that we are still controlled by sin, and want to be seen to be controlled by sin, to feel how far we are from God, and how costly Jesus’ work is in saving us.
The point though, is we can be too complacent that we are now fully in the new life, that any sins or ill actions and words we do or say can be forgiven – well, yes, but the cost of salvation remains, and I believe the part that is lacking is an ongoing recognition that we needed God and his salvation as much today as the day we came to know Jesus.
Psalm 73 has that kind of audible “ring” that words applied to the “wicked people” probably point their fingers back at us. Equally, we cannot live every minute, day and week of our live holding on the “repenting” moment that we don’t want to move on: to grow. That’s not the point. The point is that we are where we are today because of that repenting moment, and we can achieve more for God, and for us, knowing our today has been what God had been for us from our day zero to our repenting moment, right up to today.
The Music and lyrics
Some details about setting music to psalm lyrics in multiple languages have been published on this page.
I had not documented about lyrics in French, variants of Chinese dialects, Punjabi, Welsh etc. because until now I had not time to do so. This hymn on Psalm 73 presented a good opportunity because the lyrics were nearly complete enough for French and Punjabi. With some effort, I completed the Punjabi lyrics. For now, I will write a few things about Punjabi lyrics.
Lyrics in Punjabi has its own challenges when writing them to music. Not as challenging as setting languages that are right-to-left to music notation that is left-to-right, but Punjabi’s first challenge is deciding which written script to use. To save on details, I had decided to use Gurmukhi following conversations with someone who had lived in the community all his life.
Gurmukhi looks a little like Hindi. At a stretch, you can say because it makes up of “characters”, they are similar to Chinese, Korean etc.; though in Gurmukhi, the written characters can “link” or join – the top part of the characters work like a joining mechanism, more about that at a latter occasion. This point has a remote link to music setting but not significant at this stage.
The next challenge is that there is not that many music with Gurmukhi script around written in “Western” notation of any sort. This seems to be a similar case with many languages and people groups where they have what is regarded as classical writing and music, and then modern Christian worship hymn and song translated and adapted into their language, but nothing in between. That is, they don’t have relatively “modern” music pieces that have gone through adapatation ([ac]culturation) from “native” to “new native” which is a fusion of “traditional” and “contemporary”. Because of this, there is very little reference as to what worship song in western notation looks like: they either have traditional song in traditional formats, or modern worship songs completely in modern fashion except adapted with their own language and linguistic nuances. And nothing which is their own lyrics in a contemporary style when it was first written, and written down in a contemporary format.
Save the boasting later since it might come to nothing, what is attempted here could be (another) step in setting a wholesome set of lyrics, into a wholesome piece of music, incorporating as fully as possible, the Punjabi Gurmukhi script. There are some of such music books somewhere, especially used in schools, churches and communities, for example, Guradewa Kaura. & Abrol, A. S. (1993) Sikh hymns : (for schools). ISBN 1874411069.
The details here can go on and on, but for one aspect of this I will write a few words. The Gurmukhi language / script is not too complex. But the order of words / characters is important, e.g. “The person moves to my left and holds my right hand”, by careless translation, could easily render as “I move my left hand to the person’s right side.” That point aside, another point is that in many cases, there are many more syllables (or audible nuances) in a phrase than the equivalent English / French etc. which means many more musical notes are required.
However, classical singing in Punjab and that region of the world is highly creative (following a set of rules) which render to non-informed ears as somewhat improvisatory. In practice, I have incorporated this creative practice by placing a set of words (e.g. for “God is good”) on to a “note” and then there is no lyrics in the next one or two notes. That means I want the singers to sing the cluster of words using the notes indicated. Doing this means there is some creativity expected, and singers and I do not have to be so specific about to which note each character is.
That’s probably a lot of words for something so obvious and mundane for someone familiar with singing in Gurmukhi. For now, I will stop on this, otherwise, this page never ends.
A paraphrase
It is absolutely a fact that good is good to Israel,
but that I mean people whose faith for him is clear for all to see.
Easy said though, when in a split of moment
I discovered I was losing my grip.
I have so much jealousy for the proud and wicked people
they get better, brighter and richer despite their wickedness
Even their life seem pain-free:
healthy and strong bodies.
Not like the rest of us with medical ails
They are free from such problems.
They wear that can of pride full of themselves
their clothes and jeweleries magnified their cruelty to others.
They are fat cats having lots
but they still want more.
They belittle others and their words are evil
Their speech is full of malice only to crush others.
They think they are so big they can rule the heavens
and control everything on earth with their words.
To the extent people become dismayed by their plans,
confused by their leadership and control, and soon take in everything they say.
The ordinary people wondered if God kows
From his realm in heaven, does he know what’s going on?
Turn our eyes back on eearth,
these wicked people are enjoying their multiplying riches.
Has it been in vain in the way I keep my heart pure and my motive straight?
Or has it been a waste of time?
Doing so, all I get is troubles on troubles,
pain fills my senses the moment I get up.
God, I have not spoken this way about others,
because this kind of speech will defile your name.
So, I set about an impossible task –
to understand why th wicked people prosper!
You led me into your holy place, O God,
and you made me understand the wickedness of the people
It’s absolutely true that you have already put them on a slippery path
it’s a matter of time they slip and slide into self-destruction.
In a blink of an eye, they are wiped off from the earth
their significance wiped from history books – by their own wicked deeds.
I notice that, God, when you have a moment for this people,
you laugh at their silly ideas away from your plans –
the kind of laugh we have when we awake from dreams.
Gaining that insight, my heart becomes bitter
I got really perplexed.
I had become so follish and ignorant,
and I might look like an aimless animal to you.
Despite all that, you hold my right hand
assuring me I still belong to you.
You guide me with your counsel to work through my thoughts
leading me to a glorious ending.
From earth to heaven and all around, there’s noone like you.
I love you so much beyond anything.
Indeed, when I am weak and my mind becomes confused,
you keep me strong and faithful to you,
I belong to you forever.
To summarise, people who are unfaithful to God will come to a sad end
in the same way they treated others.
There is hope, I have been near to God and I can tell how good that is
Because he protects me in everything and everywhere
There is so much I can tell people about how good God is.